Trade Disputes Policy Advisor

**Details**:
**Reference number**:

- 327360**Salary**:

- £39,384 - £46,715- National £39,384 - £43,169 London £43,007 - £46,715- A Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 27%**Job grade**:

- Senior Executive Officer**Contract type**:

- Permanent**Business area**:

- DBT - DG TSG - Global Trade & Delivery**Type of role**:

- Policy**Working pattern**:

- Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time**Number of jobs available**:

- 2Contents

Location

About the job

**Benefits**:
Things you need to know

Location
- Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Darlington, Edinburgh, London, SalfordAbout the job

**Job summary**:
The Department for Business and Trade was created in February from the Department for International Trade and the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy. It brings together business and trade into a single department. The Trade Disputes Team in the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) is responsible for managing the UK’s international trade disputes and using the UK’s independent voice to champion global rules-based trade.

Trade disputes occur when one trading partner claims that another is in breach of their international trade commitments. Disputes can be worth billions of pounds to the UK economy, can have significant implications for the UK’s international reputation, and often make headlines.

This is an exciting time to join the team and help shape the UK’s newly independent trade policy. The team is diverse, friendly, collaborative and supportive. We value and encourage learning and development, including through various formal offerings and an exciting, rich and rewarding team portfolio.

The first role will be within the Strategy and Reform Branch of the Trade Disputes Team. The Branch is responsible for developing and leading engagement on the UK’s long term-policy towards dispute settlement at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and in free trade agreements (FTAs); and ensuring the UK has the right tools to enforce and settle disputes. It also leads on building capacity to support WTO and FTA disputes across Whitehall. This is a great opportunity to work on important and high-profile areas of work and gain first-hand experience of negotiating with a number of the UK’s trading partners.

The second role will be in the Case Policy Branch of the Trade Disputes Team. The Branch is responsible for managing the UK’s risk pipeline on offensive cases - possible breaches by trade partners of WTO obligations or Free Trade Agreement - and defensive cases, where the UK may be at risk of breaching its own WTO or FTA obligations.

You will play a crucial role in developing policy on contentious issues within the international trading system at the moment, such as the use of essential security exceptions and developing mechanisms to take more effective enforcement action in intellectual property and services disputes.

Work on disputes involves developing a detailed knowledge of individual cases and therefore our expectation is that the post holder will stay in the team for a reasonable period in order to effectively develop and deploy this level of expertise.

Each role reports to a Grade 7 in the Trade Disputes team

**Job description**:
SEO role in the Strategy and Reform Branch
- Lead on developing policy on use of arbitration, and alternative dispute resolution within the WTO as possible means of Dispute settlement; and supporting any such actions in which the UK is involved.
- Lead on developing policy on contentious provisions in key international agreements such as the WTO security exceptions
- Formalising and enhancing our horizon-scanning and forecasting activity to anticipate events of global consequence more rapidly and precisely, including through use of crowd-sourced insights from across government.
- Preparing briefing and high-quality ministerial advice to support the delivery of disputes powers in future legislation. Provide ‘box support’ to debates, lead/deputise briefings etc
- Leading future secondary legislation work to enforce disputes. This involves working closely with legal, analytical and policy colleagues in DBT and across Whitehall to identify and target enforcement and retaliatory measures. The post-holder will prepare for any potential announcements and draft documents that may be needed.
- Management of international dispute cases where the UK is acting as a third-party.
- This role will include the line management of an Executive Officer (EO) and potential task management of a Higher Executive Officer (HEO).

SEO role in the Case Policy Branch
- Your focus will be on managing the UK’s risk pipeline, and will include:

- Identifying and investigating possible offensive disputes, maintaining and working with networks across DBT, OGDs and Posts overseas and upskilling these networks so that trade issues can be identified and addressed accordingly.
- As offensive and defensive disputes arise, convenin